Plasma ion heating by adiabatic diamagnetization

Abstract

Attention is drawn to the fact that if a collisionless plasma in a static magnetic field is subjected to the sudden switch-on of an electric field perpendicular to the magnetic field, with a rise-time short compared with the ion cyclotron period, or alternatively, if the process of ionization occurs in crossed static E and B fields, then the internal energy of the ion component will comprise not only the kinetic energy of drift but also an equal kinetic energy of gyrational motion in the drifting frame of reference. For near-collisionless ions this process will give rise to ion heating. For deuterium ions nuclear fusion collisions may be expected for sufficiently high E/B values.